The end of the last century was a pretty good time for the Lee & Miller writing team. We had Liaden books on the way, we were being courted by anthologies, our story A Matter of Dreams was set for an illustrated guest appearance in Colleen Doran’s A Distant Soil (#27) and we were back in the groove of going to conventions. Our chapbooks were doing well… and then Absolute Magnitude’s editor Warren Lapine asked us for a story — specifically, a Liaden story.

That story happened to be the story of a crew member just coming to his majority on a small-time tradeship, one Jethri Gobelyn. Jethri had been bouncing and waving his hands and around in the character queue for awhile and we figured that once his story was told, he’d let us get back to the main line of things. But the appearance of Bal...

Local Custom and Scout’s Progress came out at the same time, in the same book — a book with yet a third title — Pilots Choice. The year was 2001 and Meisha Merlin’s publisher, Stephe Pagel, had decided that in order to keep Liaden Universe® publishing momentum going putting both novels in the same hardback would be the best way to satisfy the market. Scout’s Progress went on to win the Prism Award for Futuristic fiction, but only by a hair, over … Local Custom, which came in an extremely strong second. There’s more than a hint of romance, and more than a hint of the Georgette Heyer style regency, in both books.

Looking for a science fiction story with danger, wit, and romance? Here you go, have a sample!

After a book or two Sharon and I were surprised that we we’re getting noticed even if our books were coming out as original paperbacks rather than starting in the hardcover lists as we do now.It was fun, if not enriching, to see things like this in print:

“Val Con and Miri are the most romantic couple in SF!”
—Susan Krinard, author of Touch of the Wolf

“You may never care about a cast of characters more or await their return with more anticipation.”
—SF Site

“Full of action, exotic characters, plenty of plot, and even a touch of romance. OUTSTANDING.”
—Booklist

As much fun as it was to see nice things written about our books, it was even more fun to write them. There’s a lot of playfulness in Carpe Diem, some in the repartee, some in the naming of places, some in the challenging of ...

Welcome to 2019 and some news from the various worlds of Lee & Miller

On the first Liaden Universe® front we’re finishing up a book — Accepting the Lance — to be turned in to Baen by the end of the month, with publication currently set for the end of the year. Watch for more news here or on Facebook.

Sharon posted my reading of “A Choice of Weapons” on the Patreon pages at: https://www.patreon.com/leeandmiller/posts . This will be available to only for our Patreon supporters until after we get back from Boskone and will be unlocked for the general public around February 20. Not yet a Patreon supporter?We’ve been sharing readings there for awhile, see the list of posts and find a number of other readings in the “Splinter Universe Live” series … Also, let me know which -non-novel-length story you would like to hear us read next. I’m hoping to get another together before Boskone.